Search Results for: agamemnon

"Ah how shameless – the way these mortals blame the gods.
From us alone, they say, come all their miseries, yes,
but they themselves, with their own reckless ways,
compound their pains beyond their proper share."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 1, lines 37-40. Zeus is at an assembly of the gods on Olympus, considering the lives of Odysseus and his son Telemachus and whether to intervene in Odysseus’ troubles. Commenting on the relationship between gods and humans, he recalls the case of Aegisthus. He ignored a warning by the messenger of the gods Hermes, seduced Agamemnon’s wife Clytemnestra and then with her help murdered Agamemnon. Zeus is saying that humans tend to blame the gods for their miseries, but humans are at fault by making their own lives a misery through reckless behavior. In other words bad happens to those who deserve it.

"You must not cling to your boyhood any longer –
it’s time you were a man. Haven’t you heard
what glory Prince Orestes won throughout the world
when he killed that cunning, murderous Aegisthus,
who’d killed his famous father?
And you, my friend –
how tall and handsome I see you now – be brave, you too,
so men to come will sing your praises down the years."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 1, lines 341-347. Athena is trying to inspire young Telemachus with the courage to go and search for news about his long-lost father. She wants the boy to become a man through action and by taking on responsibility. She is basically telling Telemachus to grow up and take charge, citing as an example Orestes, who gained glory by killing Aegisthus for having murdered Orestes’ father Agamemnon. Athena says that Telemachus too will win glory if he shows bravery.

"it meant no joy to Agamemnon, not at all.
He meant to detain us there and offer victims,
anything to appease Athena’s dreadful wrath –
poor fool, he never dreamed Athena would not comply.
The minds of the everlasting gods don’t change so quickly."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 3, lines 159-163. Nestor is speaking of how Athena created a feud between the brothers Menelaus and Agamemnon after the fall of Troy. Menelaus wanted to return home immediately, but Agamemnon wanted to stay and sacrifice to Athena. Nestor calls Menelaus a "fool," saying that it is not easy to change the fate that the gods decide for you.

"Ah how fine it is, when a man is brought down,
to leave a son behind! Orestes took revenge,
he killed that cunning, murderous Aegisthus,
who’d killed his famous father."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 3, lines 222-225. Nestor relates to Telemachus the story of Agamemnon, murdered by his wife and her lover Aegisthus after his homecoming from the Trojan War. Agamemnon’s son subsequently took his revenge by killing Aegisthus. Nestor’s story is a warning to the young prince of the importance of protecting his home and family.

"No man alive could rival Zeus, dear boys,
with his everlasting palace and possessions.
But among men, I must say, few if any
could rival me in riches. Believe me,
much I suffered, many a mile I roved to haul
such treasures home in my ships.
…But while I roamed those lands, amassing a fortune,
a stranger killed my brother, blind to the danger, duped blind –
thanks to the cunning of his cursed, murderous queen!
So I rule all this wealth with no great joy.
…Well, would to god I’d stayed right here in my own house
with a third of all that wealth and they were still alive,
all who died on the wide plain of Troy those years ago,
far from the stallion-land of Argos."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 4, lines 87-92, 100-103, 108-111. Menelaus admits that he is a rich man, having amassed many treasures during his voyages to different lands. But he confesses to visitors Telemachus and Pisistratus that it brings him no great joy. For while he roamed these lands, his brother King Agamemnon was killed, thanks to the treachery of his disloyal and cunning queen. Menelaus wishes he had stayed at home, with far less wealth, and that all those who died at Troy were still alive.

and when they’d put aside desire for food and drink,
the Muse inspired the bard
to sing the famous deeds of fighting heroes –
the song whose fame had reached the skies those days:
The Strife Between Odysseus and Achilles, Peleus’ Son…
how once at the gods’ lavish feast the captains clashed
in a savage war of words, while Agamemnon, lord of armies,
rejoiced at heart that Achaea’s bravest men were battling so.

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 8, lines 85-92. The Muse goddess inspires Demodocus to sing a song about the glorious deeds of battle heroes during the Phaeacian welcome for Odysseus. But the song tells of the quarrel between Odysseus and Achilles, with Agamemnon happy to see the best of the Achaeans quarreling. This will upset Odysseus.

"Aegisthus hatched my doom and my destruction,
he killed me, he with my own accursed wife…
he invited me to his palace, sat me down to feast
then cut me down as a man cuts down some ox at the trough!
So I died – a wretched, ignominious death – and round me
all my comrades killed, no mercy, one after another,
just like white-tusked boars
butchered in some rich lord of power’s halls
for a wedding, banquet or groaning public feast."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 11, lines 462-470. Odysseus meets many people in the underworld. One of his most poignant encounters is with Agamemnon’s ghost. When Odysseus asks the great general how he met his end, Agamemnon tells how his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus invited him to a feast, then killed him. He describes it as an ignoble death, comparing it in a simile to a man cutting down an ox at a trough of food. The story of Clytemnestra’s cheating and treachery stand in contrast to Penelope’s loyalty and fidelity to her husband during his twenty year absence.

"But the death-cry of Cassandra, Priam’s daughter –
the most pitiful thing I heard! My treacherous queen,
Clytemnestra, killed her over my body, yes, and I,
lifting my fists, beat them down on the ground,
dying, dying, writhing around the sword.
But she, that whore, she turned her back on me,
well on my way to Death – she even lacked the heart
to seal my eyes with her hand or close my jaws."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 11, lines 476-483. The ghost of Agamemnon tells Odysseus that his treacherous wife Clytemnestra killed Trojan princess Cassandra over his body as he lay dying. While Penelope stands as a symbol of loyalty in the epic poem, Clytemnestra is the very opposite. After helping her lover kill her husband, she then cut down Cassandra, lover of Agamemnon.

"So,
there’s nothing more deadly, bestial than a woman
set on works like these – what a monstrous thing
she plotted, slaughtered her own lawful husband!
Why, I expected, at least, some welcome home
from all my children, all my household slaves
when I came sailing back again…But she –
the queen hell-bent on outrage – bathes in shame
not only herself but the whole breed of womankind,
even the honest ones to come, forever down the years!"

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 11, lines 483-492. Agamemnon’s ghost goes on a rant against women, believing that his wife Clytemnestra’s treacherous behavior stains the reputation of women everywhere. Agamemnon describes how his homecoming from the Trojan war was met, not with the expected warm welcome, but a plot by his wife to kill him.

"How terrible!
Zeus from the very start, the thunder king
has hated the race of Atreus with a vengeance –
his trustiest weapon women’s twisted wiles.
What armies of us died for the sake of Helen…
Clytemnestra schemed your death while you were worlds away!"

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 11, lines 493-498. Odysseus sympathizes with Agamemnon on his falling victim to "women’s twisted wiles" – referring to his scheming wife Clytemnestra. Odysseus blames the hatred of Zeus for Agamemnon’s fate. He also mentions the grief and suffering caused by another trouble-making woman, Helen, with whole armies dying for her sake.

"I tell you this – bear it in mind, you must –
when you reach your homeland steer your ship
into port in secret, never out in the open…
the time for trusting women’s gone forever!"

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 11, lines 515-518. The ghost of Agamemnon advises Odysseus to sail home into Ithaca in secret and not to tell his wife. Agamemnon doesn’t want the same thing to happen to Odysseus as happened him. Agamemnon arrived home to a treacherous wife plotting to kill him and Odysseus doesn’t know if Penelope will welcome him and still be loyal to him.

"God help me!" the man of intrigue broke out:
"Clearly I might have died the same ignoble death
as Agamemnon, bled white in my own house too,
if you had never revealed this to me now,
goddess, point by point."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 13, lines 437-441. Odysseus is grateful to Athena for warning him about the suitors plaguing Penelope his wife. Odysseus doesn’t wish to follow in the footsteps of Agamemnon, who arrived home from the Trojan War to an unfaithful wife and her lover who killed Agamemnon.

"If only you had died your death in the full flush
of the glory you had mastered – died on Trojan soil!
Then all united Achaea would have raised your tomb
and you’d have won your son great fame for years to come.
Not so. You were fated to die a wretched death."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 24, lines 32-36. Achilles expresses the glorification of heroic combat when he says this to Agamemnon in the underworld. He tells Agamemnon that if only he had died while fighting in Troy, he would have had a much more glorious death. Instead fate marked him out for a "wretched death." This is a reference to King Agamemnon’s murder by his wife Clytemnestra and her lover Aegisthus after he returned from the Trojan war.

"For seventeen days unbroken, days and nights
we mourned you – immortal gods and mortal men.
At the eighteenth dawn we gave you to the flames
and slaughtered around your body droves of fat sheep
and shambling longhorn cattle, and you were burned
in the garments of the gods and laved with soothing oils
and honey running sweet, and a long cortege of Argive heroes
paraded in review, in battle armor round your blazing pyre,
men in chariots, men on foot – a resounding roar went up."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 24, lines 68-76. In this passage the ghost of King Agamemnon is recounting to Achilles in the underworld how the great hero was honored in death. Achilles’ funeral was a very big deal, as gods and humans mourned him for seventeen days. For his cremation on the eighteenth, large number of cattle and sheep were slaughtered. The Greek hero was burned in garments from the gods while a cortege of Argive heroes paraded in full armor to honor him.

"Your mother gave us a gold two-handled urn,
a gift from Dionysus, she said,
a masterwork of the famous Smith, the god of fire.
Your white bones rest in that, my brilliant Achilles,
mixed with the bones of dead Patroclus, Menoetius’ son,
apart from those of Antilochus, whom you treasured
more than all other comrades once Patroclus died.
Over your bones we reared a grand, noble tomb –
devoted veterans all, Achaea’s combat forces –
high on its jutting headland over the Hellespont’s
broad reach, a landmark glimpsed from far out at sea
by men of our own day and men of days to come.
And then
your mother, begging the gods for priceless trophies,
set them out in the ring for all our champions.
You in your day have witnessed funeral games
for many heroes, games to honor the death of kings,
when young men cinch their belts, tense to win some prize –
but if you’d laid eyes on these it would have thrilled your heart,
magnificent trophies the goddess, glistening-footed Thetis,
held out in your honor."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 24, lines 80-99. In the underworld Agamemnon describes the funeral of Achilles in detail. He tells Achilles’ ghost how the Argives paid him great honor after his death. Achilles’ mother the goddess Thetis provided a gold urn and after burning his corpse his bones were mixed in it with those of Patroclus and Antilochus. Over his bones a great tomb was built, which could be seen from afar and for generations to come.

"The fame of her great virtue will never die.
The immortal gods will lift a song for all mankind,
a glorious song in praise of self-possessed Penelope."

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 24, lines 216-218. Speaking about Penelope in the underworld, Agamemnon’s ghost has high praise for the faithfulness of the wife of Odysseus. This is after Agamemnon hears about Penelope’s resistence of the suitors and her cunning in frustrating them by weaving a shroud for Laertes and nightly unraveling it. To the loyal Penelope, who chose to wait twenty years for the return of Odysseus and could have taken up with a suitor, Homer attributes the highest honors. She is seen as embodying the ideal wife, the paragon of marital fidelity, a model of self-restraint. Penelope is one of the main heroes of Homer’s epic poem.

"A far cry from the daughter of Tyndareus, Clytemnestra –
what outrage she committed, killing the man she married once! –
yes, and the song men sing of her will ring with loathing.
She brands with a foul name the breed of womankind,
even the honest ones to come!"

– Homer

The Odyssey, Book 24, lines 219-223. Agamemnon’s ghost contrasts the honorable character of Penelope to that of Clytemnestra, who murdered her husband Agamemnon after he returned from the Trojan War. Clytemnestra’s name will always be loathed and is a stain on womanhood, he says. No honor or glory for Agamemnon’s wife!
Rage - Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles - Home quote, The Iliad

Rage – Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,
great fighters’ souls, but made their bodies carrion,
feasts for the dogs and birds,
and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.
Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed,
Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 1, lines 1-8. The opening lines describe the ferocity of the Trojan War and the rage of Achilles, the greatest Greek warrior and hero to fight in that war. We learn about the conflict within the Greek camp between Achilles and King Agamemnon. While some of the most powerful heroes of the time took part in the Trojan war, it claimed the lives of many of these mighty heroes. We also learn about higher forces at play and shaping the lives of humans and influencing events – the will of Zeus, king of the Greek gods, who seems to control fate.

The girl – I won’t give up the girl. Long before that,
old age will overtake her in my house, in Argos,
far from her fatherland, slaving back and forth
at the loom, forced to share my bed!

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 1, lines 33-36. Agamemnon says this to Chryses about his daughter Chryseis, whom Agamemnon has enslaved. He will not give up the girl, he says, and indeed is going to force her to sleep with him. Despite pleas from his own military to accept the Chryseis’ offer of ransom for the return of his daughter, the proud and selfish Agamemnon refuses. Chryses is the priest of Apollo at Chryse and this dishonor shown to him will have have serious consequences for the Greeks.

Down he strode from Olympus’ peaks, storming at heart
with his bow and hooded quiver slung across his shoulders…
First he went for the mules and circling dogs but then,
launching a piercing shaft at the men themselves,
he cut them down in droves.

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 1, lines 51-59. Apollo, a god of healing, sends a plague to the Greek camp which kills many soldiers. He has been angered by Agamemnon’s offense to Apollo’s priest Chryses in refusing a ransom to free the priest’s daughter Chryseis.

And the matchless runner reassured him: "Courage!
Out with it now, Calchas. Reveal the will of god,
whatever you may know. And I swear by Apollo
dear to Zeus, the power you pray to, Calchas,
when you reveal god’s will to the Argives – no one,
not while I am alive and see the light on earth, no one
will lay his heavy hands on you by the hollow ships.
None among all the armies. Not even if you mean
Agamemnon here who now claims to be, by far,
the best of the Achaeans."

– Homer

The Iliad, Book 1, lines 99-108. Achilles moves to reassure Calchas who is fearful of explaining Apollo’s anger in sending the plague. The courageous Achilles lives up to his hero reputation by promising that he will protect Calchas even if it is from King Agamemnon.

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